Cambodian PM hopes for early start to genocide tribunals as observers warn of hurdles

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Associated Press

Kek Galabru, president of the non-governmental human rights group Licadho, warned the Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors could fail to reach a consensus on which suspects should be indicted.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodian leader Hun Sen said Thursday he hopes for a speedy start to genocide trials for former Khmer Rouge leaders, as observers warned that the U.N.-backed tribunal faces more obstacles.

"We are truly wishing for the trials to start as soon as possible," Prime Minister Hun Sen said during a visit to Japan. "There is no doubt this is something all Cambodians wish for."

After repeated failures over the past six months, Cambodian and foreign judges announced the rules for the tribunal Wednesday, paving the way for the tribunal to begin investigating the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7 million during their 1975-79 communist rule.

However, observers said efforts to prosecute the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders face further hurdles.

"The hardest part has yet to come, and that is who and how many (suspects) should be or should not be" indicted, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

There is also a growing concern that aging defendants could die before the trials begin.

"Cambodia can embrace ... a bright future only after this matter has been settled, the trials have been held and punishment will be given," Hun Sen told a press conference.

He himself was a junior Khmer Rouge member who defected from the group before the regime was toppled from power in 1979.

The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by the special tribunal. He was believed to be 80.

The only potential defendant now in custody is Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Their senior-level colleagues, Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Cambodia and the United Nations created the genocide tribunal last year under an agreement they reached in 2003. The 17 Cambodian and 12 foreign judges and prosecutors have spent the last six months in sometimes rancorous disagreement on guidelines for the trials.

The tribunal is an unprecedented hybrid. It will operate under the Cambodian judicial system often criticized as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation. Decisions require support from a majority of the Cambodian judges, backed by at least one U.N.-appointed judge.

On Wednesday, neither the Cambodian nor the foreign judicial officials would give details about their cases or reveal names and the number of potential suspects.

Kek Galabru, president of the non-governmental human rights group Licadho, warned the Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors could fail to reach a consensus on which suspects should be indicted.
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Additional reporting by Associated Press writer Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo.